fevnut's musings: 2019 #1: patience required

fevnut's musings

We need to be very patient indeed

For our first ‘fevnut’s musings’ of 2019 we are starting with a statement that is so very obvious that you might wonder why on earth we bother to write it. But please bear with us and you will see why it needs to be said.

Rugby League is a team game.

That means that a team can field 13 brilliant players but it won’t be much use unless those players know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and know how to bring out the best in each other. You can have a Martin Offiah (or Luke Briscoe) in your team and he will score some brilliant individual tries but he will be so much more effective if the other players in the team are adept at delivering him a pass that gives him the best chance of using his brilliance. Back in the 1992/93 season, our own Owen Simpson scored 34 tries in 33 matches. A few of those were simply because he had the speed to beat opposition players on the outside but the vast majority were because he had a centre inside him who could deliver the perfect pass that gave Owen the best possible chance of crossing the line. And what better centre could he have had than Paul Newlove. That season was their third playing together and the partnership actually produced 82 tries that year.

Nearly all our best memories of Fev matches came from established groups of players who knew each other’s games inside-out and played so well together. It’s not just the centre/wing partnerships. When you have 2 props who know each other the results can be awesome. We think back to the combination of Steve Molloy and Leo Casey who combined so well together. Then there was the fabulous scrum-half/hooker partnership of Deryck Fox and Trevor Clark. And at half-back there was the wonderful pairing of Joe Mullaney and Don Fox. They knew each other’s games and thoughts so well which is hardly surprising as they were together in the halves no less than 218 times. And at fullback you need a player who can organise in defence and understands the way other's play in order to maximise the potential when they join the backs in attack. Two aspects of the game that Chris Bibb was so very good at.

For 2019 we seem to currently have a squad of 22 players plus about 4 likely dual reg candidates. From our own squad only six remain from last year. There is no possible way that they can combine together to the best of their potential until they have been through a long learning process. So, let’s all be patient and support them fully while they get to properly know each other. And let’s hope that all those new players coming in will be with us for years to come and we get a team that matures together.

In our mind, the biggest positive is the creation of a reserve team. It would be so very good to once more watch young players developing into the Fev stars of the future and gaining the occasional experience in the first team alongside players they already know.

Rule Changes

At the time of writing the rule changes for 2019 are not clear. It appears that we will have slightly different rules in the Championship to those in Super League. From what we read, in both divisions the ‘free-play’ will be no more. We think that is a pity. Over the years rugby league seems to have become more formulaic. The free-play was welcome because it gave the opportunity for players to try something different. We hear that Super League will reduce the number of substitutes down to 8. We hope that is also the case in the Championship. It will be good to see props not being interchanged so often and maybe we can have some exciting ends to matches when the ‘middles’ are getting tired.

We also understand that Super League are introducing Golden Point when the scores are level after 80 minutes. Apparently that will not be the case in the Championship and for that we are very thankful. We simply cannot understand what is wrong with a draw in a league match. If it’s level after 80 minutes then the teams deserve one point each and we believe that the spectators are quite happy with that. It’s certainly better than the ridiculous drop-goal-a-thon. We understand why it has become an unsatisfactory necessity in knock-out games but there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the draw in a league competition.